Christ’s College takes environmental issues seriously. We have an active Green Committee (green@christs.cam.ac.uk ), comprising Fellows, Staff and Students chaired by Dr Richard Clarke, who meet regularly to develop initiatives aimed at reducing our impact on both the local and global environment. We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint by lowering energy use, recycling as much waste as possible and using more local produce.

We have signed the Cambridge Climate Change Charter and are taking a number of measures to enable year-on-year reductions in our energy use and carbon footprint. We recently commissioned the Carbon Trust to survey the College site and advise us on ways to improve our environmental performance and we are now in the process of grouping together with other Cambridge Colleges for compliance with the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme. Our energy-saving initiatives, which we began to roll out in 2008, include:

• A schedule of boiler replacements improving the efficiency of our heating system.
• Improvements to loft insulation in College buildings.
• Use of thermal imaging equipment by a team of Fellows and Students to identify key sites of heat loss from our historic buildings.
• An expanded recycling scheme for paper, glass, metals and plastic.
• A College-wide awareness campaign to encourage more environmentally friendly practices among Fellows, Staff and Students.
• Preparing to apply for the Carbon Trust Standard.
• Promoting greater use of vegetarian and locally sourced food in our kitchens.

Christ’s was recently ranked 8^th in the CUECS Green League Table, an improvement on our previous ranking of 15^th and a significant achievement given the age of many of our buildings.

New energy usage figures:

We have achieved a year on year reduction in our energy usage as a result of our boiler replacement and insulation initiatives.